Claude Good
cgood@mosaicmennonites.org
Elizabeth Stover and her husband Preston who live at Dock Woods Community were out walking on the path in the woods connected to the retirement community. Coming toward them was a young man with his small playful child hanging on to his legs. Insoo Lee introduced himself and said he was the youth pastor of a nearby Korean church. Elizabeth invited Insoo’s family to her home for dinner and to speak with the prayer group that she leads at Dock Community.
At that meeting Insoo found out about the Worm Project and invited Alicia and I to present the project to the young people of his church. We were met with overwhelming enthusiasm. Some students wanted to take the contribution containers to their school classrooms to encourage their classmates to contribute as well.
That small group was able to pull together $1,000.00 in a few months! The Worm Project is able to buy a de-worming pill for just two pennies each when bought by the million. One pill can save enough food from the worms to help a child have, on average, an extra 10 lb. of food every six months. So at two cents each, $1,000.00 will buy enough pills to treat 50,000 children! But it will be even more than that – Insoo says that the youth want to keep the contribution containers to continue raising funds to treat more children around the world.
Insoo’s congregation has recently merged with Hatfield (PA) Church of the Brethren becoming one congregation – Grace/Hatfield Church of the Brethren. They worship in English at 10 a.m. and in Korean at 11:30 a.m. on Sundays. A bilingual worship is in their plans for the near future.
The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.